The Torture Report, Barack Obama, and the Abdication of Leadership

The
release earlier this week of the Senate’s “torture report” has been
discussed mostly in terms of what went on under George W. Bush’s
presidency and at “his” CIA. That lets other lawmakers—including
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat in charge of the committee that
released the report, and Barack Obama, among others—off way too
easy. And it leads to a serious misapprehension of the true
significance of the mess in Washington, D.C. From my
Daily Beast column on the topic:

We need to be clear about the ultimate import of the torture
report, which covers a period from late 2001 through 2009 and whose
release was unconscionably delayed for years. It won’t be the cause
of lowered international esteem for America or even attacks on
overseas personnel. No, that’s all due to the same old failed
interventionist foreign policy, massive and ongoing drone attacks,
and the proliferation of “dumb wars” over the past dozen years
under both Republican and Democratic presidents and Congresses.

The torture report is simply the latest and most graphic
incarnation of an existential leadership crisis that has eaten
through Washington’s moral authority and ability to govern, in the
way road salt and rust eat through car mufflers in a Buffalo
winter. “America is great because she is good,” wrote Tocqueville back in the day. “If America
ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” We’ve got a lot
of explaining to do, not just to the rest of the world but to
ourselves. How much longer will we countenance the post-9/11
national security state, which Edward Snowden’s ongoing revelations
remind us are constantly mutating into new forms and
outrages?…

Nobody here has
credibility. Claims that they never knew about waterboarding and
other enhanced interrogation techniques by leaders such as Nancy
Pelosi have never been particularly credible. Sen.
Dianne Feinstein notes at the very start of the report, the
original investigations started in 2007 when it came to light that
the CIA had destroyed (accidentally!) video of its interrogations.
What took so long for this all to see the light of day? And for all
President Obama’s cloying campaign patter about transparency, he
still chose to keep 9,400 CIA documentsfrom the Senate
Committee, citing “executive privilege.” Some secrets, it seems,
must be kept even from elected representatives who could still be
sworn to secrecy….

The leadership in both parties is laughable and ineffective,
incapable even of pushing a budget through in the official manner
while missing no opportunity to sermonize on the real and imagined
evils of their legislative adversaries. The torture report taunts
both sides equally because in the final analysis, the difference
between “How could you support this?” and “How could you let this
happen?” is morally null and void.

Read the whole thing.